Page 89 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

I whimper, which Taras takes as encouragement, but when he reaches up to grab my panties, I spin away from him again.

This time, it pisses him off. It seems his love of the chase is fading.

His face is red and he lets out a sharp, angry huff. “Listen, whore. I have been nice. You drank my wine, yes? Ate my food? You are wearing my dress?”

“How romantic,” I mutter, forgetting myself.

His bleary, bloodshot eyes come alive, turning sharp and piercing. “You are mistaken,kurwa.You belong to me. You do as I say. If I tell you to drop to your knees, you ask, ‘Cock or balls?’ Are we clear? Do you fucking understand?”

The mask of the rich gentleman is slipping. Beneath it is a greedy pig eager to feast. I won’t make that easy for him. If the punishment is being beaten, then I’ll take it gladly.

Let him hurt me. I won’t sacrifice my dignity to spare a little pain.

“Cock or balls?” I ask, biting temptingly at my lower lip.

Taras smiles. “Both.”

I step towards him, slow and seductive. “Gladly.”

Then I kick him as hard as I can between the legs.

Something crunches. Taras’s eyes go wide. He drops to his knees, his hand cupping his crotch and bleating with an ungodly, animalistic cry of pain.

He bolted the door when we came in, but the guards outside must have the key because it’s ripped open in a second and I’m being hauled back towards the door and out of the room as Taras Kreshnik, my owner, curses me with gasping breaths.

“You no-good fucking bitch! You stupid whore! You will pay…!”

I can hear him swearing all the way through the dining room, into the hallway, and all the way back to my room.

The guards throw me in through the door and I collapse on the floor.

Rose waits until they’re gone to jump up and grab my arm, hauling me to my feet. “What happened? Why are you back so soon?” She runs her hands over my arms like she’s checking for bruises.

“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me,” I say, grabbing the thin blanket from my bed and wrapping it around my shoulders to stem the trembling. “I can’t say the same for him, though.”

Rose blinks at me, silent for a few seconds. “What did you do?”

“You were right. Pretending is a lot harder than it seems. It was horrible.”

She freezes. “What did you do?”

I relay the “date” for her, sparing no detail. When the story is over, she gapes at me, mouth hanging open. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

I nod. “I kicked Taras in the dick.”

She shakes her head. “Not tonight, but… in the future. He’s not going to forget this, Arya. He’ll think of a punishment.”

“He was already going to rape me. What punishment could be worse than that?”

“You don’t know what it can be like.”

“Maybe not,” I admit, laying a hand on Rose’s arm. “You’ve been here longer and I trust you know what you’re talking about. But I can’t bottle my emotions inside the way you can. I would rather be beaten every single night than let the man think for even a second that I like what he’s doing to me. It’s too much.”

We’re quiet for a while. In the last six weeks, I’ve come to know Rose well enough that I can tell she’s mad, but I’m not sure why.

I’ll be the one who gets punished for what I did, right?

“I’m sorry I didn’t take your advice,” I say, breaking the silence. “But I can’t live like this without fighting back.”

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